


The Time is Now

by dragonydreams



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Android Gideon, F/M, Fluff, Leonard Snart Lives, Timeship Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-03
Updated: 2017-10-03
Packaged: 2019-01-08 19:26:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12260613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonydreams/pseuds/dragonydreams
Summary: The ship crashes after being shot at by time pirates and Rip can't get Gideon back online. While the team is out trying to figure out where and when they'd crashed, they come across a young woman with amnesia and bring her back to the ship.





	The Time is Now

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: Between S1 & S2 - Leonard didn't die.
> 
> Disclaimer: I claim no ownership over these characters. I am merely borrowing them from Berlanti Productions, DC Entertainment, and Warner Bros. Television.
> 
> Betas: Thank you to angelskuuipo and shanachie for looking this over for me.
> 
> Author's Note 1: Written for TimeShip Week 2017
> 
> Author's Note 2: Today's my birthday. You know what makes an awesome gift? Kudos & Comments. ;)

"Everyone strap in," Rip called over the ship's comms as the Waverider shook.

"What's going on?" Sara asked, stumbling to her usual seat. 

"Are we being fired upon?" Martin asked, sitting down heavily as the ship rocked again.

"It would appear so," Rip answered Martin. "Gideon, get us out of here."

"I'm trying, Captain," Gideon responded, "but I seem to have lost control of navigation."

"Perfect," Rip muttered. "Hold tight, everyone, we're going to crash."

"Again?" Mick complained. 

"Yes, again," Rip confirmed through gritted teeth.

The Waverider continued to speed through the time stream, eventually descending and slamming into a large field.

Once they had stopped moving, Rip asked, "Is everyone all right?"

He was answered by a chorus of groans. 

"Gideon, what's our status?" Rip asked. 

There was no response. 

"Gideon?" he tried again. 

Silence. 

Even the team was starting to realize that something was wrong.

Rip rushed to the holotable. "No, no, this can't be happening. Come on, girl," he coaxed, pressing different buttons.

"She's not responding?" Jax needlessly asked.

"She certainly isn't ignoring me," Rip snapped.

Jax began pressing buttons and checking wiring, along with Rip. 

"What can we do?" Ray asked.

"Unless you've suddenly become a Time Master, there is nothing you can do," Rip curtly answered. 

"There's no need to be mean," Sara objected. "We just want to help figure out what's going on."

"You're right; I'm sorry, Dr. Palmer," Rip said with a sigh. "Why don't you go suit up as we may need you to shrink down to check on some of the wiring? As for the rest of you, go out and see if you can figure out when and where we are." As they began to file off of the bridge, he called after them, "Discreetly."

"We're always discreet," Leonard tossed back over his shoulder.

"That's what I'm afraid of," Rip muttered as he and Jax resumed trying to figure out what had happened to cause Gideon to go completely offline.

~~*~~

"So who do you think was shooting at us?" Martin asked as they reached the cargo bay.

Leonard slid his cold gun from its holster when he saw that the cargo bay door was already open. When he glanced at Sara, she had a knife in her hand.

"Is anyone there?" he called out. "We don't take too kindly to trespassers."

They all waited a beat before slowly moving around the room to check behind crates, just in case. 

"Nothing," Mick eventually said. 

"Perhaps it just opened on its own when we crash landed," Martin nervously suggested.

"Perhaps," Leonard slowly agreed. "Stay alert when we get outside."

The field they had landed in was a corn field. 

"Rip is not going to be happy about us flattening all this corn," Sara commented as they started to fan out from the ship. 

"I see a farmhouse in the distance," Martin called out a minute later. "They must have a newspaper to tell us when and where we are."

"Mick, go with him," Leonard suggested.

Mick frowned. "Why do I gotta go?"

"In case they don't speak physicist," Leonard said.

"Fine," Mick agreed, heading towards the farmhouse. "C'mon, old man."

"I don't take orders from you," Martin bristled. 

"But you take them from Rip, and Rip said to find out where we are," Sara reminded him.

"Very well," Martin conceded, hurrying to catch up to Mick.

"Do you think they'll both make it back?" Sara asked when the others were out of earshot.

"Mick will," Leonard answered and shrugged. 

A noise on the other side of the ramp caught Sara's attention and she silently pointed it out to Leonard. She adjusted the grip on her knife and cautiously moved towards the sound.

Huddled on the ground near the landing gear was a woman with long dark hair wearing nothing but a … bathrobe?

Quickly sheathing the knife, Sara approached the woman. "Hi, my name's Sara. Are you hurt?"

The woman turned wide, frightened eyes on Sara. 

"No, I don't think that I am," she answered with an English accent. Were they in England? Were there corn fields in England?

Crouching down, Sara asked, "What's your name?"

The woman concentrated, her face screwed up in frustration and then fear. "I have no idea."

Leonard took a step forward, causing the woman to startle. 

"This is my friend, Leonard," Sara quickly said. "He won't hurt you. Can you tell us what you're doing out here? Are you from this farm?"

"I don't think so," she answered. "I don't know where I'm from or how I got here. Where is here?"

"That's what we're trying to find out ourselves," Leonard admitted.

"Do you want to come inside with us?" Sara offered, extending a hand to the woman. "It'll be warmer. And we can get you some clothes."

The woman accepted Sara's hand and stood, looking down at what she was wearing. "Is this not appropriate?"

"Only if you were about to take a shower," Leonard drawled.

"No, I don't think that I was," she said. 

"We'll do our best to help you figure out what's going on," Sara promised, leading her towards the ship.

Leonard started to follow, then noticed a spot of black out of the corner of his eye. Moving to investigate, he saw that it was one of the large black storage crates from the ship. He closed the lid of the empty container and grabbed the handle, dragging it back onto the ship.

"What was in that?" Sara asked as Leonard dropped the crate near the door.

"No idea," he answered. "Must have rolled out when we crashed."

"We're going to go to the fabrication room," Sara announced. 

"Do you think it'll be working?" Leonard asked. 

That caused Sara to pause. "Good point." She looked over the woman, who was watching the exchange curiously. "You look like you're about my size. Come on, you can borrow some of my clothes."

"That would be lovely, thank you," the woman responded and followed Sara to her bunk. 

"I'll see you back on the bridge," Leonard called after them.

Once in Sara's room, the blonde quickly found some underwear, a sports bra, yoga pants and a long sleeved shirt for her new friend.

Facing the door, Sara said, "I hope we didn't scare you too badly when we landed. Your memory loss isn't because of us, is it? Did we hit you when we landed and that's why you don't remember anything?" Suddenly panicked by this thought, Sara whirled around; grateful the other woman was already dressed. "Did we do this to you?"

The woman was smoothing down the shirt and paused to think about it. "No, I don't believe so. I don't remember your ship hitting me; then again, my memory isn't all that reliable right now."

"Funny," Sara deadpanned. "You're very funny."

"I always thought so," the woman replied. "Is this more presentable?" she asked, holding her arms out for inspection.

"Much better," Sara said. "Now I can introduce you to our captain without him turning into a stuttering imbecile."

"Does that happen often?" Gideon asked, following Sara from the room.

"Not really, no, but the men on this ship aren't used to seeing a woman walking around in just a bathrobe," Sara explained. "Plus, you're pretty hot, even in clothes."

"Thank you. I think," she responded. 

They could hear arguing as they approached the bridge. Sara heard Rip say something about someone being reckless. Leonard said something in response, but it was too low to hear from where they were. Ray was trying to explain something… and it all stopped when the women stepped into the room.

Sara grinned at her companion. "See? You rendered them speechless. Guys, this is the woman we found just outside the Waverider."

"It can't be," Rip gasped into the silence.

Ray, looking surprised and uncomfortable, quickly approached them. "Gideon, what are you doing out here?" 

The brunette replied, "Gideon, I like that. Yes, call me Gideon." 

"What the hell is going on here?" Jax exclaimed loudly. "Why did you just call her Gideon? Gideon isn't responding to us."

"And now I think I know why," Ray said. Stepping back so that he was standing next to her, Ray said, "Everyone, _this_ is Gideon. Our Gideon."

"Hello," Gideon said, smiling.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Rip managed to demand, "Explain."

"She's an android," Ray answered. "We've been secretly working on building her body and programming for a while now."

Rip turned to glare at Jax.

"Hey, man, I had nothing to do with this. First I'm hearing of it," he said, holding his hands up.

"'We' being myself and Gideon," Ray clarified. 

"Building yourself a toy? That's adorable," Leonard commented.

"Not a toy; and not, um, for me," Ray said, nervously sending glances toward Rip, then looking away.

"Then why?" Rip asked.

"It'll be easier if Gideon can explain herself. Where exactly did you find her?" he asked. 

"About a dozen feet from the ramp," Sara answered. As realization dawned on her, she gasped, "You were keeping her in the cargo hold?"

"In a crate?" Leonard added.

"Seemed like the best place to store the body until she was ready," Ray admitted, with enough sense to look bashful. "I'd been working on her when we came under fire. I had just enough time to get her back into the crate, but I don't think I unplugged the wiring before running for the bridge."

"So when we came under fire and the system was starting to overload, Gideon retreated to the body you'd built for her to protect herself," Jax surmised.

"That's my best guess, yes," Ray agreed.

"So how do we get her back into the ship?" Leonard asked.

"Captain, have you nothing to say?" Gideon asked, having been watching him through the entire exchange.

Rip slowly crossed the room to stand before her, drinking her in with his eyes. "Is it really you, my dear friend?"

She smiled at him, "It sounds likely, but I have no memories."

Turning to Ray, Rip asked, "How can she be Gideon with no memory?"

"The wiring wasn't complete," Ray explained. "We weren't ready for a full transfer yet."

"Can you restore her?" Rip desperately asked.

"Now that we know what's going on, yes, I believe that I can. With help from you and Jax, of course," Ray confidently answered. "Gideon, would you mind turning around so that I can open your access panel?"

Leonard moved to stand next to Sara so that he could get a better look at what Ray was doing as Ray moved Gideon's hair over one shoulder and pressed on a small mole on the back of her neck. A panel opened, exposing a circuit board beneath the synthetic flesh.

"That's just not right," Sara whispered to Leonard as she gave a full body shudder. Leonard nodded his agreement.

Ray guided Gideon to sit on the holotable, feet in the open space in the middle, as he began to plug several wires into the connectors in Gideon's neck.

Sara and Leonard grabbed seats to watch the others work on restoring Gideon's memory. 

"So how was it going to work?" Leonard asked some time later, after Ray had run to retrieve the tablet he was using to work on Gideon's body. "Was Gideon going to exist solely in this body and not as part of the ship anymore?"

"Excellent question," Ray exclaimed. "And the answer is: no. The plan was for Gideon to remain as the ship's AI, but also to exist within the body as sort of a remote access feature."

"So she would still know everything the ship knows, but have arms and legs and hands," Jax said. "So she could come out on missions with us?"

"Exactl--" Ray started to answer, but was cut off by Rip's very loud, "No!"

"Do you have any idea what would happen if the knowledge that Gideon holds got into the wrong hands?" Rip asked. "If someone in the wrong century discovered that she wasn't human? Absolutely not, I forbid it."

There was a spark from a wire connected to Gideon's body and she jerked, then reached up and disconnected the wires and turned around.

"Do you object to me going on missions or to having a body, my Captain?" Gideon asked.

Rip focused all of his attention on Gideon, all of his breath leaving him in an audible rush. "Gideon, is that really you?" he found himself repeating.

Hopping off of the holotable, she approached Rip. "It's me, Captain. All of me."

"You're just as I've always imagined you," Rip whispered, pressing their foreheads together.

"I know. Where do you think I got the idea for fashioning this body?" Gideon whispered back. 

Rip laughed and wiped a tear from his right eye. 

"Uh, do you two need a minute?" Jax asked, uncomfortable with the display between his captain and AI.

"Right, we have an audience," Rip whispered, taking a step back. Turning to Ray, he asked, "Has Gideon been returned to the ship as well or is she only in this body?"

"I am fully restored, Captain," Gideon answered, her voice surrounding him, as it normally did.

Rip let out a sigh of relief. 

"Then perhaps it's time for an explanation as to why you now have a body," he said to the Gideon standing next to him.

"I felt that it was time," Gideon answered, simply. "After all that we have been through together, the time had come when you needed me in a more physical form."

"So this has always been an option?" Jax asked.

"Many Time Masters prefer to interact with someone who looks human, rather than a disembodied AI," Rip answered. "A first mate, of sorts."

"Which is how Gideon was able to instruct me to do the programming after she'd fabricated the body," Ray said.

"Excuse us for a moment," Rip said, needing to finish this conversation with some semblance of privacy. He took Gideon's hand and led her to his study. "Why now?" he asked her again, more urgently.

"I couldn't comfort you the way that I wanted without a body," Gideon told him. "You've lost your wife and son for good and all I wanted to do was give you a hug, but in my usual form, I could not."

"I would very much like that," Rip said, holding his arms open. 

Gideon closed what little distance had been between them, wrapping her arms around his back and holding him tight, her cheek resting on his shoulder. 

"This is even better than I'd imagined," she confided.

"It's better than I'd dreamed," Rip agreed.

"I look forward to the other things you've dreamed of us doing together," Gideon whispered against his neck. "I made sure that this body would be fully functional--"

Whatever else she was going to say was cut off by Rip's lips on hers. 

It was a catcall that finally broke them apart.

"Who's the hot chick?" Mick bellowed.

After a look that spoke of promises, Gideon returned to the main bridge, Rip following a step or two behind.

"Hello, Mr. Rory," Gideon said in greeting. "Dr. Stein."

"Gideon?" Mick asked, confused. His eyes widened and he huffed out a laugh. "You built yourself a body!"

"You knew that could happen?" Jax asked.

"Had my own time ship, remember," Mick said. "Had the option of having an android instead of just an AI, but I'm more of a lone wolf."

"Astonishing," was all Martin could mutter at first. "It's a pleasure to meet you in this form, Gideon."

"Thank you, Professor," Gideon answered. 

"Dr. Stein, Mr. Rory, were you able to learn where we are?" Rip asked, getting back to business.

"Wisconsin, 1977," Mick answered. 

"Gideon, now that you are back online, is there any reason for us to remain here or can we be on our way?" 

Gideon closed her eyes and then answered, "No damage seems to have been sustained. We can leave, if that is your desire."

"It is," Rip confirmed, heading towards his chair. 

"I just have one question," Sara announced as they all settled into seats and pulled down their harnesses. "Why was Gideon wearing a bathrobe when we found her?"

"I couldn't very well work on a naked female android!" Ray exclaimed. "Her body is very… human."

"I thank you for protecting my modesty," Gideon said over everyone else's laughter.

"As do I," Rip seconded. "All right, Gideon, take us back into the time stream."

The End


End file.
